InnFocus Summer 2023

Employee retention is at the top of every employer’s mind.
Labour shortages continue to be a challenge for BC’s hospitality
industry. The province now has as many as 50,000 job vacancies
in tourism and hospitality and federally there’s a shortage of
300,000 workers.
Employees are also expensive to replace. Cost-of-turnover
estimates for a single position range from 30% of the yearly salary
for hourly employees to 150%.
Upskilling yourself and your employees is one tool employers
can use to boost retention. It’s also something employees want.
According to a 2021 PricewaterhouseCoopers survey, 77%
of workers said they’re ready to learn new skills and 74% saw
upskilling as a matter of personal responsibility.
Here are three educational programs to try:
1. Fast Track Financial Training with David Lund
David Lund is a Financial Coach helping hotel teams and leaders
effectively manage their operational finances with financial
coaching and educational workshops.
Earlier this year, Lund partnered again with the BC Hotel
Association (BCHA) on a Financial Leadership training series.
The program covered six modules: financial leadership,
business principles, financial statements, managing payroll
and productivity, controlling expenses, and advanced financial
leadership and analysis.
Lund says that for many people the biggest takeaway was
accounting, which is a lot easier than they thought. “People
tend to think about numbers and accounting as something that
requires a lot of training and experience, but this is more about
business thinking,” he notes. “People realize that if they want their
career to grow and advance into more positions of leadership and
responsibility, they need to know their numbers.”
Lund believes that by developing your leaders around financial
skills, you’re investing in them and giving them another good
reason to stay. “People want to work for employers that are
invested in their future,” he adds.
Outside of the BCHA training program, Lund offers one-onone
coaching and mentoring programs, online workshops and
video courses, and custom content. On his YouTube page and
blog www.hotelfinancialcoach.com, you can find hundreds of
free videos and articles.
2. Leadership Development with Blue Mountain Solutions
Blue Mountain Solutions provides leadership development,
customer service excellence training, and operational support
to organizations and companies of all sizes.
Principal Owner Theresa Ito has been in hospitality for 39 years
and is passionate about supporting the industry and helping
leaders find the joy in leadership again. Ito and her team train
leaders to function more efficiently and effectively and help them
upskill on the job by providing formal leadership development.
Ito believes leadership development is integral to retention given
the impact a leader has on the people around them. “We are so
influenced by the people who are leaders at work,” she says. “We
spend so much time with them and they impact our mental health
so much. Yet as leaders, no one has taught us those lessons. The
things that we get right—we’re lucky, we think we’ve got it right.
The things we don’t get right—they backfire so badly; we feel
shame and embarrassment.”
In a six-part series with the BCHA entitled Leadership for
Hospitality Professionals which kicked off March 7, 2023, Ito is
taking leaders back to the basics. She chose the topics based
on what she thought were most impactful: becoming assertive,
mastering your time, team meetings, and the magic of one-oneones,
handling complaints like a pro, switching on your emotional
intelligence, and keeping yourself motivated.
Ito designed the series to be impactful and relevant and allow
leaders to take away one or two small things every session,
allowing them to make a small change each day and ultimately
improve their leadership skills.
When it comes to retention, Ito believes it all starts with
developing yourself as a leader. “Start with ensuring that you as a
leader are performing well, showing integrity, passion, and an open
heart,” she suggests. “Your approach to yourself and how you act
InnFocus 27